


Make Your Choice

by demistories



Category: Marvel (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-08-04
Updated: 2014-10-06
Packaged: 2018-02-11 16:48:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,190
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2075586
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/demistories/pseuds/demistories
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Natasha Romanoff has made her choice. She would rather join SHIELD than die. And since Clint Barton is showing her the ropes, it'll definitely be interesting.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Evenly Matched

**Author's Note:**

> Aka the most generic, overdone Clint and Nat fic ever. Apparently. For an overdone fic, I've never seen one....
> 
> Anyway, I was having a bad night and this happened. I don't really know what else to say, so enjoy the bad chapter titles and horrible summaries!

He stared at her gun and cocked an eyebrow. "You know, it's supposed to be the other way around," he said, raising his bow. 

She stared back at him with cold eyes.

"Sorry, Widow," he said, pulling back the arrow.

She took him in. Was he usually this slow? Did he usually talk to his targets? Doubtful. He was one of SHIELD's best. Too bad she was _the_ best.

"One of us is going to have to do something," he said with a chuckle. 

Was he joking around? She was about to put a bullet in him and he was joking around? 

"I saw what you did."

Her heart beat sped up. Did he notice?

"You missed your shot because a kid walked in front. You hesitated. You missed your time slot. And now here we are."

"My target is still dead," she said steadily. She didn't understand the small talk. She used small talk when she need to stall. Why was he stalling? What was he trying to do? Delay his death? Delay  _her_ death? But why would he delay her death? He had killed countless other people. Why was she any different?

"Uh yeah. Because you took him backstage and shot him. But you could've shot him earlier. Would've saved you the pain of getting through security."

"Pain?" she scoffed. "Getting through security was hardly painful."

He smiled. "Ah, so the spider isn't a robot."

She narrowed her eyes. "I'm going to kill you." 

He lowered his bow. "And I'm supposed to kill you."

"Supposed to?" She swore at herself silently. She was so much better at controlling herself than he was making it seem. She really just wanted to the pull the trigger but—

" _Supposed_ to. I don't know if I will."

"If you don't kill me, I'll kill you," she hissed. 

"See that's where you're mistaken. First of all, you'd try to shoot me as soon as I released an arrow. And we both know how to move out of the way of deadly objects. We'd probably just run around shooting each other for a while. Secondly, I don't think you'll kill me."

He was smirking. She gritted her teeth. "Why don't I prove you wrong?"

"Why haven't you shot me yet?"

She froze. 

"You're better than this. If you wanted me dead, I'd probably be dead right now. So what's the holdup?"

She glared at him. "Hawkeye, I will put an end to you."

"Empty threats are worth exactly nothing, Natalia."

She took a deep breath. "Get to the point so I can shoot you."

He leaned on his bow. "I want you to join SHIELD."

She fired a bullet at his head. He tilted it just a fraction of an inch and let it whiz by and then there was an arrow pointing at her chest. 

"See, the funny thing about this, is that you don't have much of a choice."

"I have a gun."

"Look, Black Widow, Natalia Romanova, or whatever you want to be called, we're pretty evenly matched."

She rolled her eyes. "Sure we are."

"We are."

"Why would you want me for SHIELD?"

"Abrupt change of subject, Talia, but—"

"Did you just nickname me?"

"What? Do you like Nat better?"

She tightened her grip on her gun. 

"Basically, you're one of the best spies the world has ever seen. Hate to see that go to waste." 

"Oh so suddenly I'm better than you? What happened to evenly matched?"

"Ah ah ah," he grinned, letting his aim lower to the ground. "Notice how I said 'one of'."

She fired a shot to the side of his head. He didn't even flinch. 

"Talia, was that a warning shot?" He released the arrow at her feet and placed a hand to his chest. "I feel offended!" 

Something pink burst from the arrow. She stepped back, but it kept expanding until it reached her neck. Her arms were stuck in place, but she could still pull the trigger. Or she could until he plucked the gun from her fingers. 

"What the hell?!" she snapped as he spun her gun around his finger. 

"Trick arrow," he said. "Most fun I can have without shooting someone." He raised the gun and shot the wall behind her. "It's nice, very nice."

"What are you playing, Hawkeye?" She wondered if he could tell she was burning with rage. He was getting under her skin and she didn't like it. She knew how to control anger, so why wasn't it working? 

"Playing? I'm not playing anything. All I'm doing is waiting for you to make a choice." The arrow was pointing at her again. "Join SHIELD or die. Actually, now that I think about it, you don't really _have_ a choice. Well you do, but it's not much of one."

She weighed her options. She was fine with dying. If she went over to SHIELD, she'd be hunted down. Hunted down by people not as good as she was, but still hunted down. Dying was smarter. 

That's why she wanted to shoot herself when she heard "I'll join SHIELD" leave her mouth. 

He smiled and shot the arrow at her feet. It exploded and the pink blob that was holding her broke to pieces and fell to the ground. 

She dusted herself off. "What if that explosion killed me?" 

He shook his head. "Nah. Give any other guy an explosive arrow and tell him to get you out, you'd definitely be dead. But trust me, Talia. I know what I'm doing."

She stared at him. "You do?"

"'Course. It's not my first ride or whatever that stupid saying is."

"It's 'this isn't my first rodeo' and it sure seems like it."

"You're chatty all of a sudden."

"And you're making stupid decisions all of a sudden."

"I've done stupid things, but not today. None that I can think of anyway."

"You're recruiting the person you've been assigned to kill."

He was smiling too much. She didn't like people who smiled a lot, to her, they seemed like they were keeping a secret. Being who he was, he was definitely keeping secrets. "And saving your life. Remind me how that's stupid?" 

She stared at him. She wasn't sure if she was supposed to take him seriously or not.

He walked up to her. "Weapons," he said, holding out a hand. 

She kept direct eye contact as she took knives, guns, and a hand grenade off her person. 

He packed them into a bag. "Impressive."

She shrugged. 

"Alright, let's go." He started to lead her away. 

"You're not going to cuff me?" she asked in disbelief. Was he stupid?

"Like that would stop you from trying to kill me," he said with a snort. "I'm trusting you."

"Dumb move," she muttered. 

"Yeah well, I'm still pretty sure you have more weapons on you. Like that pin in your hair probably has a knife or poison or something. But if you wanted to kill me, you already would've done it."

She reached up and touched the pin. He wasn't wrong. She wasn't dumb enough to give him all of them. She had pepper spray disguised as lipstick in her pocket. That wasn't even for work. 

"Now let's go, Talia! The faster Fury rips my head off, the sooner you get to join SHIELD!"

"Natasha," she said softly. 

"What?"

"Earlier," she raised her voice, "you said 'whatever you want to be called'. I want to be called Natasha. Natasha Romanoff."

He nodded slowly. "Wait a second, did you do that so I can't call you Talia?"

She just raised her eyebrows. She  _wished_ she had thought of that. 

"Fine. Come with me, Natasha Romanoff. Let's bring you to SHIELD."


	2. Cuffs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> SHIELD welcomes Natasha Romanov

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ~~Genius summaries and titles as per usual~~
> 
> I totally meant to upload this forever ago. I just kept forgetting. Sorry! Also, sorry about any spelling or grammar. I'm tired. I can't tell if it's shorter, but I'll try to upload the next chapter soon. There's some swearing. I don't know if Coulson would swear but you can only put up with so much of Clint's crap.
> 
> Note: I have absolutely no idea where they are. SHIELD HQ? An old SHIELD HQ? Who knows? Not me. Oh and I have no idea how to write Clint. I haven't read the comics, I've watched the animated series, and I've seen the movie, but mostly, I'm winging it, so sorry if he's wrong. And I also don't know how old Nat was when she joined SHIELD, so I just...made up an age

He walked with such a carelessness and ease she was a little jealous. If he was acting, he was good. If he wasn't, he was an idiot. Actually, it didn't matter. He was an idiot either way. 

She kept her arms in front of her, wrists crossed. She stared straight ahead tried not to look at anything for longer than a second, tried to not let anything catch her eye. She kept her mouth shut while he chattered on. 

She saw the looks other agents were giving her. She lowered her eyes to the ground. She could still hear the whispers and feel the glares. She could see the feet and conversations stop as she passed. 

"Cuff me," she whispered. 

"Did you say something?" 

She winced at how loud his voice was. She grabbed his arm and dragged him to the branch off the hallway she saw. 

"I said, cuff me."

He frowned. "Why would I do that? It wouldn't stop you or anything."

"Just do it," she hissed.

"Look, Tasha, I'm not going to handcuff you. Why is that a problem."

"Because," her gaze darted to the main hall, "everyone is looking at me."

"Uh, yeah. You're a wanted assassin."

She gritted her teeth. "I  _know that!_ That doesn't mean I want them staring at me like I'm going to go on a killing spree!"

"But you're not."

God she wanted to hit him. Or shoot him. Or the wall. Or anything. She settled for clenching her jaw and glaring. "I swear to god--"

He put his hand on her shoulder. "Trust me, Nat, it'll be fine."

She stared at the hand for a second before shaking it off. "Don't they say 'trust no one'?" She grabbed the handcuffs from his belt and cuffed one wrist. "Cuff the other wrist."

He sighed. "You're insane," he said, locking her other wrist in. 

She shrugged and stepped toward the main hall. 

People still stared, but they seemed less nervous, less angry, when they saw that her hands were tied. If they knew her, they would know these pathetic pieces of metal meant nothing to her except that she had another weapon. 

He resumed talking about nonsense while she realized that he was trusting her even more by letting her cuff herself. He wasn't slow, he could've stopped her from grabbing them. He was supposed to kill her, he had read a file about her, she was his mission, he knew what she could do with these handcuffs. He _knew.  
_

"Here we go," he muttered under his breath as they turned to a new hallway. He pulled her behind him as the door at the end of it opened. 

She didn't like him pushing her around, but it was just safer to do what he said. 

"That took you a long time, Barton. We were starting to wonder if the Black Widow caught you."

"Caught me in her web? Nah. Would you believe me if I said there was traffic?"

There was a pause. She held her breath. There was no way the person he was talking to hadn't noticed her. 

"So no?"

"I'd believe you if you said you stopped for a donut."

"Come on, Phil, you should know me better than that by now!"

"I know you well enough to know that whoever is standing behind your back you really don't want me to see."

" _What?_ I can't believe you'd say that! Why would you think--"

"Barton."

She looked down and let her hair fall in front of her face, stepping out from behind him. The man would probably recognize her instantly, but maybe she'd give off the impression of being submissive. 

She heard the man groan and looked up to see him rubbing his temples. 

"Barton, you fucking idiot."

She glanced up at him to see him staring past the man he had called Phil, and could've sworn he was trying not to smile or smirk or do anything other than be a statue. She looked back down. 

"Phil Coulson, meet Natasha Romanoff. Natasha, meet Phil." 

She blew her hair from her face and met Coulson's eye.

"Agent, Barton.  _Agent._ " He frowned. "Did you say Natasha."

"Yeah, I did."

Agent Coulson sighed. "Miss Romanoff, I'd extend my hand for you to shake, but it appears that you're unable to shake hands."

She nodded.

Agent Coulson crossed his arms. "Barton, you better have one hell of a reason for bringing your _target_ back here. Your target who's supposed to be dead."

"She's joining SHIELD."

She thought the vein in the poor man's forehead was going to burst.

His voice was dangerously quiet and steady. "She's _what?"_

"Joining SHIELD. Better than her ending up dead."

Agent Coulson shut his eyes tightly. "I swear to god."

"All I did was give her a choice, Coulson!"

"We don't give our targets choices, Barton! You should know that!"

"Look at her! She's barely 22!"

"And she's killed dozens!"

She took a deep breath. "Sir, I'm alright with dying. It might be less painful if you just kill me now."

"She shouldn't be okay with dying, Phil!"

She glared daggers. 

Agent Coulson's face fell. "Fury can deal with this mess. You know he's going to kill you, right?"

His face lit up. 

"Not the response I was looking for. You cuffed her, I'm assuming you took her weapons?"

He laughed. "I didn't do that, she cuffed herself." He held out the bag of her weapons. 

She eyed the bag. She really liked that gun. What were the odds they'd give it back when they finished all of this?

Agent Coulson took the bag with a frown. "She cuffed herself."

"All your Agents were staring at me like I was going to snap their neck," she muttered. 

Agent Coulson raised an eyebrow. "Well..."

He shook his head and patted her back. "Tash wouldn't do that. She knows she's outnumbered."

She scoffed and rolled her eyes. Outnumbered? He should learn not to underestimate her.

"You nicknamed her? He nicknamed you?!" 

She stepped back in surprise. Agent Coulson hadn't lost his cool before, why was he losing it now? Why was she having such a hard time reading him?

"God, now we're never going to be able to get rid of you. Just go to Fury. I can't-- Just go."

He flashed her a smile as Agent Coulson stepped aside. She stared at the door. 

"The door isn't soundproof, is it?" she asked. 

"Why would it be? Soundproofing doesn't change how loud he screams."

Agent Coulson shook his head. "She's just saying you should brace yourselves. I'd hate to see my best agent lose the last 20% of his hearing."

"Was that a compliment? It sounded like a compliment." He was smiling even more. She wanted to wipe it off his face. 

"Just go." 

He knocked on the door.

"Get in here."

Agent Coulson pressed his hand to the scanner next to the door and waited for three beeps and a green light. "Good luck. You'll need it."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (I hope it was clear who was speaking)


	3. Fury's Fury

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clint and Natasha meet with the dreaded Nick Fury. And Nat spends most of the meeting wanting to punch Clint in the face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I want to punch myself in the face for that title. I am so sorry. 
> 
> So it's been forever since I updated, but I got inspiration one night, so here's the first of three chapters I wrote. I'm going to try to start uploading regularly at the beginning of each week (Sunday, Monday, or Tuesday)
> 
> Enjoy!

She followed him into the office, keeping her head down and her arms close. She doubted she'd fool the director of SHIELD, but she could try and make herself seem smaller and less dangerous. She could try, and she would.

The black chair behind the desk was turned away from them. She rolled her eyes. Nick Fury had to be past the spinning around, 'I've been expecting you' phase. 

"Barton, you fucking idiot." 

He stood up taller and stared straight ahead at the wall besides the chair. "Sorry, sir."

"And Natalia," Fury said, standing up, his back still to them, "why the hell didn't you kill him. Would've saved me the trouble."

"Natasha," he said. 

Fury turned around. " _What_  did you say?"

He set his jaw. "I said Natasha. Her name's Natasha Romanov."

She stared at him in horror. She knew better than to talk out of turn to her superiors, didn't he? He couldn't be so stupid to think  _correcting_  the  _director_  was acceptable!

Fury glared. "I don't care if she wants to be called Little Red Riding Hood, you do NOT bring your target back to headquarters alive!" He slammed his hands down on the desk. Papers fluttered off and fell to the floor. 

"Yes, sir."

Fury let his head hang. "Stop that 'yes, sir', 'no, sir', 'sorry, sir' shit. You aren't listening."

He opened his mouth but closed it quickly. He lowered his gaze to the floor.

Fury straightened and spun his chair around. "If he tries to do something like this again," he said to her, sitting down, "just shoot him."

She frowned. "Sir?"

His gaze shot up and he burst into a smile. "'Again'?"

"I can't believe I'm doing this," Fury muttered. 

"'Again' means she gets to stay, right?"

She wanted to step away, his excitement was off putting. He was like a puppy. He shouldn't be this happy, he only met her a few hours ago, and she had been aiming a gun at his head. 

Fury pushed a button on his desk. "Coulson, I need people to take Romanova--"

"Romanov," he corrected again. 

She resisted the urge to punch him. She appreciated him accepting her new name, but she could fight her own battles.  _And_  she knew when to shut up. 

Fury took a deep breath. "People to take  _Romanov_  to a room." 

She kept a straight face -- 'a room' could mean literally anything -- but she felt a pit in her stomach. 

Agent Coulson's voice responded, "Yes, sir" and the room went silent. 

She could still feel waves of excitement practically melting off him, while Fury's gaze felt like daggers, even as she stared ahead at nothing. 

The quiet was too tense. She knew Fury was waiting for one of them to do something, for one of them to say something, maybe even waiting for her to try and kill them both.

There was something about how he looked at her, a weary, suspicious look, that she knew all too well. She had seen it on the faces of people who had the misfortune of being partnered with her on various missions. 

The door behind them swung open and Coulson stepped into the room, quickly followed by two agents. They were high ranking and had weapons. She didn't know exactly what kind, they looked like prototypes, but if she wanted to leave, she doubted they'd do much to stop her. 

"Miss Romanov," Agent Coulson said.

She spun around and stepped forward. One of the agents grabbed her arm roughly and pulled her towards the door. She bit back a comment about how she could walk herself and tried not to glare. 

"H--"

Fury cut him off. "Barton, you are going to stay here and we are going to have a long talk."

She heard Coulson sigh and the door shut. She forced herself to keep looking forward and not look back to the door. She didn't care what was going on in there. She wasn't curious at all. 

Agent Coulson walked faster and caught up to them, standing next to the agent on her left. 

"You'll be brought to an interrogation room," Coulson said. "Despite what Agent Barton thinks, you can't just waltz in and become a SHIELD agent."

"I figured," she said, her words harsher than she intended. 

She made a map in her head as they walked through hallways and cooridoors, went down elevators and through security checks. She tried not to pay attention to codes and passwords, but she was having a hard time breaking years of training and habbit. 

The room they left her in had padded walls. There was a table and two chairs, a cot on the floor in a corner, no handle on the inside of the door, and no windows. 

The agents sat her down in one of the chairs and unlocked her handcuffs. To strap her to the chair. When they left, Coulson turned to her. 

"Look, Miss Romanov, you seem..." She knew how she seemed. "Just tell the truth," he decided on. "Don't keep secrets from us. It'll end badly."

She furrowed her eyebrows. Why did he care what happened?

"Can you at least try to tell the truth?"

She nodded. Trying was always an option.

Coulson sighed and put his hand on the door. It swung open, and she was left to her own thoughts. 

* * *

It had been at least half an hour, and Natasha Romanov was getting bored. And that was saying something. 

She was patient. She had to be. She was fine with stakeouts, she was fine with taking things slowly, hell, she was fine with everything standing still. But now? No. She couldn't handle waiting any longer. 

She had figured out how to get out of the straps confining her to the chair less than five minutes after Coulson had left. She had identified all the cameras and microphones in the room. She noticed the lack of sharp objects or things that could be made into sharp objects, and found weapons she could use if she needed to. She had tested the weight of the chair. She went through her usual checklist that she always went through before a mission.   
And her fuse was shorter than ever. 

She figured that Director Fury was still yelling at him. It didn't seem too far fetched. 

But Coulson would be conducting the interrogation, she was almost certain of it. So why the wait?

It took her another ten minutes to finally decide on a reason. They were waiting for her to make a move. 

SHIELD had to have better ways to lock people up, and she might not have superpowers, but she was as dangerous as anyone they dealt with. This was some sort of test.

She spent another ten minutes trying to figure out if they wanted to see if she'd stay put or if they wanted her to break lose. 

She decided that at this point, they had to be waiting for her to get out of her bonds.

She twisted her wrist a few times in a specific way, yanking at it with her teeth occasionally, then slipped her wrist right out. Good thing she was blessed with thin, flat hands and wrists. 

She got her other wrist free and stood up. 

No guards were rushing in, no alarms were blaring, but she knew they were watching her. Waiting. 

She walked up to a corner of the room. She leaned closer to the camera. She knew she wasn't being discrete, but she had no reason to be. She could disable the cameras in the room in a second, and be out of SHIELD before they knew it. 

But she wasn't going to do that. 

She decided that if she was going to sit in the interrogation room, she was going to get something out of it. She started conditioning. 

Sit ups, push ups, planks, squats. Jumping jacks, handstands, plies, stretches. 

She did anything she could think of that didn't need equipment, but she was running out of exercises. She had stopped keeping track of time when she started working, but she knew a lot had passed. 

She eyed the padded walls and punched one. It didn't feel too different than a punching bag, really the same except for the lack of movement. 

She threw herself into her usual routine. Punches and kicks in rhythm with a beat, a song, that only she could hear in her head. 

The door opened and she stopped beating the wall. She turned to Coulson, who smiled and put a file down at on the table. 

"Having fun?" he asked. 

She slowed her breathing and pushed her hair out of her face. "Took you long enough."

"Well, there's a lot of paperwork."

She rolled her eyes and punched the wall again. 

"I'm going to apologize for Agent Barton right now. He's a great agent, but he doesn't always think things through."

She punched the wall a few more times. "Not necessary. I already figured that one out."

Coulson chuckled. She kept her gaze on the wall as she hit it. 

"What did you do to make Barton trust you?" 

"What did  _he_  do to make  _you_  trust  _him_?"

"I've known Barton for a while now."

"Oh so do you take all your orders from him?" she snapped, jabbing at the wall. She froze as her fist met it. 

"He's supposed to take orders from me."

Her blood turned to ice. What was happening? She was never so...out of control. She knew how to talk to superiors.  _This_  wasn't how. She-- She was acting like he did when he talked to Fury. She couldn't do that. She  _couldn't_. What was wrong with her?

She turned around to look at Coulson.

Another smile played on the corner of his mouth. "Couldn't tell, could you?"

It was  _him_. Agent Coulson. She couldn't read him, couldn't understand him, and she was lashing out because she hated, absolutely  _hated_ , not understanding people.

Understanding people was what she did. It was her life, her weapon, how she survived. 

And it was the same for him. That's why she hated him. Why she wanted to punch the smirks off his face, slap him when he talked back to Fury, shoot him for every stupid little joke he made. She couldn't understand him, she couldn't understand Agent Coulson. 

Why couldn't she read anyone at SHIELD?

**Author's Note:**

> Hawkeye's trick arrow was one from The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes. I looked up his trick arrows, but I wasn't sure if it was even named. So I kind of just tried to describe it. Without actually rewatching anything so... I don't know how accurate it is...
> 
> Apologies if the spacing is bad. I'm having issues with it right now, but if it's really bad, please let me know and I'll try to fix it! If there are any grammar and spelling mistakes, please let me know and I'll fix them. It's pretty late, and I think I got them all, but you never know. 
> 
> Should I tell you guys what the choice is? I mean I bet you can guess this one.


End file.
